1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an intermediate file processing device used in a printer control system that uses a printer driver of a computer to convert print data, which is prepared by an application of the computer, into print data appropriate for the printer and that then provides the print data to the printer.
2, Description of Related Art
Generally, a personal computer performs printer control operation according to an operation system OS installed therein.
FIG. 1 illustrates how a conventional personal computer 9 performs a printer control operation onto a printer 8 according to xe2x80x9cWindows 95xe2x80x9d (trade mark), which is one example of the operating system OS.
Based on the function of the operating system OS, a print data preparation unit 4, a code generator 5, and a spooler 6 are provided in the personal computer 9. The print data preparation unit 4 is configured from: a printer driver 2 and a Graphical Device Interface (GDI) 3, both of which are provided by the operating system OS; and an application 1 which is installed in the personal computer 9 separately from the operating system OS.
With this structure, when a user prepares print data using the application 1, the printer driver 2 controls the Graphical Device Interface (GDI) 3 according to the print data. The GDI 3 is a program module provided by the operating system xe2x80x9cWindows 95 (trade mark)xe2x80x9d and is a xe2x80x9cWindows (trade mark)xe2x80x9d standard for representing graphical objects. The GDI 3 prepares a device context (DC) which is a virtual display region or virtual device. Based on the received print data, the GDI 3 draws an image on the device context by storing print data, that is independent of the type of device (printer, display, or the like), at coordinates of the device context indicated by the application 11. When the image is thus drawn on the device context (virtual device), an intermediate file, termed an Enhanced Meta File (EMF), is automatically produced due to the function of the printer driver 2 and the GDI 3. The EMF is formed from various commands, such as a command to xe2x80x9cdraw a linexe2x80x9d and a command to xe2x80x9cform a polygon.xe2x80x9d
The print data preparation unit 4 then sends the thus produced Enhanced Meta File to the code generator 5, which in turn converts the Enhanced Meta File into control commands of a description language corresponding to the type of the printer 8. Each control command is made from a train of control codes.
It is noted that each printer manufacturer uses his/her own printer control commands with different specifications. For example. Hewlett Packard uses command sets of a page description language xe2x80x9cPCL (Printer Control Language).xe2x80x9d Adobe uses command sets of a page description language xe2x80x9cPostScriptxe2x80x9d. In order to cope with all these various description languages, the code generator 5 converts the Enhanced Meta File into control commands of the description language corresponding to the target printer 8.
The code generator 5 outputs the control commands, each of which is formed from a train of control codes, to the spooler 6, which in turn stores the control commands as a spool file 7 in a hard disk provided to the personal computer. The spooler 6 then retrieves the control commands from the spool file 7, and transmits the control commands to the printer 8 so that the printer 8 will perform printing operation.
The personal computer 9 can be used to control the printer 8 to perform special types of printing jobs, such as multi-pages printing, overlap printing, and page-exchange printing. When the user inputs a command to perform a special print job during the application process, the code generator 5 inserts, among control codes, a special command necessary for performing the special print job when outputting the control codes to the spooler 6. In this case, the code generator 5 has to generate a special control code for the special print job in the description language corresponding to the model of the target printer. Because each different printer model uses a different description language, a special control code for each special print job has to be prestored in the personal computer 9 in the description language of each different printer model. Accordingly, for each special print operation, a plurality of different special control codes have to be prestored in the personal computer 9 in correspondence with the plurality of different description languages. The code generator 5 has to perform extremely complicated processes onto the Enhanced Meta File.
It is therefore an objective of the present invention to overcome the above-described problem and to provide an improved printer control system that enables the personal computer to control special print jobs using simple processes independent of the printer model.
In order to attain the above and other objects, the present invention provides an intermediate file processing device, comprising: a memory: intermediate file forming means for receiving a set of print data for a print job to be printed by a printer, for forming, for the print job, a set of one or more intermediate file, independent of a device for treating the print job, based on the set of print data, and for storing the set of one or more intermediate file in the memory, each intermediate file representing a single page image to be printed by the printer onto a single sheet; process command means capable of producing a command for processing the print job; page separation means for, in response to the command, recognizing the set of one or more intermediate file for the print job and for separating the one or more intermediate file from one another; and job processing means for processing the print job through producing, according to the command, a set of one or more new intermediate file based on the set of one or more intermediate file. The memory may be constructed from a hard disk. The memory may be constructed from a RAM.
The intermediate file processing device may further comprise code generating means for converting the set of one or more new intermediate file into code data appropriate for a type of the printer.
The intermediate file processing device may further comprise print data preparation means for preparing the print data for each print job, the print data preparation means preparing a command file indicative of whether the print job should be processed and storing the command file into the memory, wherein the process command means analyzes the command file stored in the memory, and outputs the command based on the analyzed result.
According to another aspect, the present invention provides an intermediate file processing device for a printer control system that uses a printer driver of a computer to convert, for a print job, print data, which is prepared by an application of the computer, into code data appropriate for the printer and that then provides the code data to the printer, the intermediate file processing device comprising: a memory; intermediate file forming means for receiving a set of print data for a print job to be printed by a printer, for forming a set of one or more intermediate file, independent of a device for treating the print job, for the print job based on the set of print data, and for storing the set of one or more intermediate file in the memory, each intermediate file representing a single page image to be printed by the printer onto a single sheet; process command means capable of producing a command for processing the print job; page separation means for, in response to the command, recognizing the set of one or more intermediate file for the print job and for separating the one or more intermediate file from one another; and job processing means for processing the print job through producing, according to the command, a set of one or more new intermediate file based on the set of one or more intermediate file, the set of one or more new intermediate file being converted by a printer driver into code data appropriate for the printer. The memory may be constructed from a hard disk. The memory may be constructed from a RAM.
According to still another aspect, the present invention provides a printer control system, comprising: a printer and a personal computer connected to the printer, the personal computer including: a memory; print data preparation means for preparing a set of print data for each print job to be printed by the printer, for preparing a command file indicative of whether the print job should be processed, and for storing the command file into the memory; intermediate file forming means for receiving the set of print data for each print job, for forming, for the print job, a set of one or more intermediate file, independent of a device for treating the print job, based on the set of print data, and for storing the set of one or more intermediate file in the memory, each intermediate file representing a single page image to be printed by the printer onto a single sheet; process command means for analyzing the command file stored in the memory and for, based on the analyzed result, selectively producing a command for processing the corresponding print job; page separation means for, in response to the command, recognizing the set of one or more intermediate file for the corresponding print job and for separating the one or more intermediate file from one another; job processing means for processing the print job through producing, according to the command, a set of one or more new intermediate file based on the set of one or more intermediate file; and code generating means for converting the set of one or more new intermediate file into code data appropriate for a type of the printer. The memory may be constructed from a hard disk. The memory may be constructed from a RAM.
The job processing means may store the set of one or more new intermediate file in the memory as a new print job. Or, the job processing means may store the set of one or more new intermediate file in the memory as the same print job through writing the set of one or more new intermediate file onto the set of one or more original intermediate file.
According to a further aspect, the present invention provides a data recording medium storing, in a retrievable condition, a control program for controlling an intermediate file processing device for a printer control system, the control program comprising: a control program for producing a command for processing a print job; a control program for, in response to the command, recognizing a set of one or more intermediate file for the print job and for separating the one or more intermediate file from one another; and a control program for processing the print job through producing, according to the command, a set of one or more new intermediate file based on the set of one or more intermediate file.
The control program may further include a control program for receiving a set of print data for a print job to be printed by a printer, for forming, for the print job, the set of one or more intermediate file, independent of a device for treating the print job, based on the set of print data, and for storing the set of one or more intermediate file in a memory, each intermediate file representing a single page image to be printed by the printer onto a single sheet.